A.D. Rattaray’s Cask Islay

There are a number of these non-age stated whiskies from undisclosed distilleries out there, particularly from Islay. This one is put out by independent whisky bottle A.D. Rattaray.

It’s made from small batches of 5-10 casks each all from a single distillery, so it still bears the title Single Malt even if the name of that distillery is not disclosed. While each Islay distillery has quite a unique profile it is still hard to identify them by smell and taste alone, especially at such a young age (some trustworthy reviewers seem to point to this being around 6-7 years matured).

We can however do some detective work and narrow the options down. A.D. Rattaray’s website states that it’s peated to around 35ppm. Of the Islay distilleries we have Caol Ila who peat their whiskies to around 30-35ppm and Lagavulin who peat to around 35-40ppm. Caol Ila produces a lot of whisky compared to the other Islay distilleries and independent bottlers like to buy their stuff, but Lagavulin generally don’t let independent bottlers use their name so it’s usually undisclosed. So this bottling is most likely one of the two.

This was pretty nice for a cheap single malt. It hits all the Islay notes, and while young has some complexity. There was the slightly unbalanced bitterness on the palate which was somewhat off putting, but this is still enjoyable if you like the young Islay whiskies.

As for the distillery behind it, I’m going to say it’s Caol Ila because of the ashy note on the palate and the fruits that showed up, just something I usually associate with them.